Bride Rose Sweeney News

COLUMBUS – State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) today gave sponsor testimony before the Ohio House Finance Committee on House Bill (HB) 520. The bill would help qualified Ohio workers apply for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program by establishing the Navigator Pilot Program under the Chancellor of Higher Education.

COLUMBUS – State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) today gave sponsor testimony before the Ohio House Health Committee on House Bill (HB) 316, to allow Extreme Risk Protection Orders, which keep Ohioans safe and support the work of law enforcement.

COLUMBUS— State Representatives Paula Hicks-Hudson (D - Toledo), Catherine D. Ingram (D-Cincinnati), Michele Lepore-Hagan (D-Youngstown), and Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) issued statements on what to expect going into the last weekend of early voting in Ohio. The members also recapped their requests of Secretary LaRose over the last several months, requests that have largely been ignored. National news outlets this week covered Ohio’s long and entirely predictable early voting lines. The Guardian reported on Columbus’s “quarter-mile lines” and the Washington Post reported on Cuyahoga County’s “extraordinary, blocks-long lines.”

COLUMBUS – State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) issued a statement Wednesday following the news that Ohio reported 2,366 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours, a new record and the sixth day in the last week with over 2,000 new daily cases. Hospitalizations also reached a new high, with a total of 1,252 Ohioans in the hospital for COVID-19, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

COLUMBUS— State Representatives Paula Hicks-Hudson (D - Toledo), Catherine D. Ingram (D-Cincinnati), Michele Lepore-Hagan (D-Youngstown), and Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Frank LaRose asking him to account for a directive he issued late Friday afternoon. The directive cuts off six days of vote counting time that counties might need to finish the count. It moves the deadline from November 24 to November 18 for counties to complete the official canvass.

COLUMBUS— State Representative Bride Rose Sweeney (D - Cleveland) released the below statement in response to a federal judge’s dismissal of the second ballot drop box lawsuit.

COLUMBUS— State Representative Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) responded to a federal court’s Saturday order requiring the Ohio Secretary of State  to explain himself by noon today on why he has not allowed Cuyahoga County’s Board of Elections to move forward with its bipartisan unanimous plan to offer ballot drop off services at six library locations.

COLUMBUS— State Representative Bride Rose Sweeney (D - Cleveland) released the below statement in response to Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s just-released directive limiting boards of elections to having drop boxes only at their Board of Elections sites and not throughout the county. Rep. Sweeney is watching to see what happens today in a federal court on the drop box and ballot collection issue. 

COLUMBUS— State Representative Bride Rose Sweeney (D - Cleveland) announced the discovery of a major flaw in the Secretary of State’s Online Voter Registration system. News reports last week of Ohio college students facing obstacles led her to examine the site. Student addresses are being rejected and the website misleads students into believing they’ve registered to vote when they click “Submit Voter Registration” when, in fact, they often must submit a paper form.

COLUMBUS— State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) responded to today’s refusal by the state Controlling Board to grant the Secretary of State’s last minute request for additional authority to pay return postage for absentee ballots. Sec. LaRose recently mailed absentee ballot applications to registered Ohio voters without including return postage. Sweeney has been urging LaRose for months to use the existing authority of his office to pay return postage for both ballot applications and absentee ballots.